The Roman Poets of the Republic, 2nd editionSellar, W. Y. (William Young)
History
The Roman Poets of the Republic, 2nd edition
Sellar, W. Y. (William Young)
Latin poetry -- History and criticism
The complement of this first principle is the proposition that no thing
is annihilated, but all existences are resolved into their ultimate
elements. As the first is a necessary inference from the existence of
universal order, the second is proved by the perpetuity of creation and
the observed transformation of things into one another.
The original substances out of which all things are produced, and
into which they are ultimately resolved, are found to be certain
primordial particles of matter or atoms, which are called by various
names--'materies,' 'genitalia corpora,' 'semina rerum,' 'corpora
prima.' Some of these names, it may be observed, are expressive not
only of their primordial character, but also of a germinative or
productive power. The objection that these atoms are invisible to our
senses is met by showing that there are many invisible forces acting in
Nature, the effects of which prove that they must be bodies,--
Corporibus caecis igitur natura gerit res.
In addition to bodily substance there must also be vacuum or space;
otherwise there could be no motion in the universe, and without motion
nothing could come into being. The existence of matter is proved by our
senses, of vacuum by the necessity of there being space for matter to
move in, and also by the varying density of bodies. But besides body
and vacuum there is no other absolute substance--
Ergo praeter inane et corpora tertia per se
Nulla potest rerum in numero natura relinqui.[379]
All material bodies are either elemental substances or compounded
out of a union of these substances. The elemental substances are
indestructible and indivisible. This is proved by the necessities of
thought (i. 498, etc.) and of Nature. If there were no ultimate limit
to the divisibility of these substances, if there were not something
immutable underlying all phenomena, there could be no law or order in
the world. The existence and ultimate constitution of the atoms is thus
enunciated--
Sunt igitur solida primordia simplicitate
Quae minimis stipata cohaerent partibus arte.
Non ex illarum conventu conciliata,
Sed magis aeterna pollentia simplicitate,
Unde neque avelli quicquam neque deminui jam
Concedit natura reservans semina rebus.[380]
At this stage in the argument, from line 635 to 920 of Book I, the
first principles of other philosophies, and particularly of the
systems of Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Anaxagoras, are discussed at
considerable length, and shown to be inconsistent with the actual
appearance of things and with the principles already established.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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